The present invention is directed to a double-bladed meniscotome for harvesting a strip of patellar tendon and the method for performing same.
A bone-patellar tendon-bone graft is harvested for use in anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. Schutte et al. have disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,026,385 a double-bladed scalpel for simultaneously cutting along opposite sides of the patellar tendon. A scalpel, however, has its cutting edge along the bottom edge of the knife blade. Cutting is performed by pushing down against the blades to force the blades into the tendon being cut. When the double-bladed scalpel is pressed against a bone at the end of the tendon graft the scalpel blades have a tendency to splay apart. The Schutte et al. design provides structure for avoiding the separation of the scalpel blades during cutting. In using a scalpel as disclosed by Schutte et al., the surgeon's fingers rest up near the blades. As such, incisions totalling over about four inches must be made in a knee to permit a surgeon to use the Schutte et al. scalpel to harvest the patellar tendon autograft.
Another device that has been used for cutting the patellar tendon graft is a Smillie meniscotome. The Smillie meniscotome has a single concave cutting edge mounted on a straight handle. While a smaller incision is capable of accommodating the Smillie meniscotome during patellar tendon harvesting, it is difficult to make sure that the tendon fibers attached to one bone block are the same fibers connected to the other bone block. The single bladed Smillie meniscotome requires a separate cutting operation along each side of the tendon. As such, it is possible that only a few of the tendon fibers in the graft hold the two bone blocks together.